This invention relates generally to the field of sports accessories and more specifically to a football warming and drying device.
The game of football is well known in the United States. It is played with an elliptical shaped ball that is pointed at each end. The ball is inflated with air and the outer skin can be made of pig skin or man made elastomeric materials that are molded to simulate pig skin. The game of football is played in a variety of weather conditions including rain and snow. Under these conditions, the ball can become quite slippery, and in cold weather can become rock hard, making the ball difficult to throw and catch. Therefore it is desirable to use a dry, warm football whenever possible. During a typical high school or college game each team uses their own footballs when they have possession of the ball. Therefore a team that has access to a dry warm ball is at an advantage to a team that does not. To this end, the concept of a football dryer has been contemplated by a number of inventors.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,730 by C. Grant et al shows a method of drying footballs that uses silicon dioxide to absorb water. The user puts the ball in a bag with powder in it and shakes it. U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,040 by W. Starkey et al shows a dryer that has a carrousel for the footballs to ride in and uses a generator powered by gasoline to provide power to heaters. U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,002 by D. Roberts et al includes a pair of contoured rollers that rotate causing a friction and rubbing to wipe the ball. U.S. Pat. No. 3,747,226 by K. Graffius shows a dryer that uses electric heat lamps and needs to be plugged into 120 volts AC. Patent application 2003/013602 by A. Presnell shows a dryer that uses a 3,000 watt heater powered by a battery.
Each of the prior art has its deficiencies that will be overcome by the present invention. The Grant patent is an inherently messy operation and rather time consuming. The Roberts patent dries only one ball at a time and is a rather complicated and expensive solution. The Graffius patent is not portable. The Starkey patent is quite large and the use of a separate gasoline powered generator makes it noisy and less portable that desired to be carried in a vehicle which carries football players such as a bus or SUV. The Presnell patent application shows a large device that uses a 3,000 watt heater powered by a battery. Even a huge battery would only last about thirty minutes putting out 3,000 watts of power. The Ferris wheel design wastes a lot of space inside the housing making the entire unit difficult to transport to away games.